My latest digital scrapping page

So for those of you who don't know, my husband just graduated from law school in May.  We were lucky enough to spend those three years of law school in Eugene, Oregon (home of the Ducks!).  And I loved it.  And I miss it.  I use digital scrapping as a way of recording not only my family's life, but a little like a journal as well.  So I used the little bit of "me" time I had over the last couple days to make this page.

Journaling reads:  Immediately after Dallin was born, we moved to Eugene, Oregon for Landon to go to law school at the University of Oregon.  Being a first time mom hundreds of miles from home, family & friends was hard.  But I grew to love Eugene with all my heart.  When it was time to move on, I felt like I was leaving part of myself behind.  I loved the trees, the ward, the farms, the laid back lifestyle, the coast, and most of all, all our friends.
I think I'll always be a little homesick for Eugene.

Housewarming Gifts

Well, I'm back for the new year.  Things were crazy crazy crazy for the holidays.  I had so many projects going on!  And, disappointingly, some of them I didn't take pictures of.  Oh well.

But here's something I did snap some pictures of.  We've had some close friends buy their first homes recently, so I made them a little something for a housewarming gift (though I think they would be good wedding presents as well).

Pine boards, cut to the sizes I wanted.  Drilled holes in the hanging plaque.  Then painted them both and applied the vinyl lettering I designed.

I think they turned out cute!  I still can't decide which style I like better!

Little Star book review

Little Star, by Anthony DeStefano, illustrated by Mark Elliott

I have a three year old little boy, and he is just now getting the idea of Christmas.  Meaning he gets presents.  We are Christians, and we tried so hard this year to drive home the concept that he gets presents because it is Jesus' birthday.  We told him the Christmas story over and over, had him act it out with his Fisher-Price little people nativity, and read him lots of stories about the true meaning of Christmas.  This book was one of those stories, and we all really liked it.
It was a unique take on the Christmas story, in addition to addressing other issues like being laughed at or ignored, that you can be important even when you are small, and sacrificing for others.  It was really a sweet beautiful story of Jesus' birth.  I recommend it to anyone trying to teach a child how Christmas began, and why it is important today.

*I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.  (But that doesn't mean I didn't say exactly what I think!)

Christmas Cards!

So, a few weeks ago, I did that Christmas Card design giveaway....and I had 6 people enter.  So because I love you and because I love to do it...I decided I'd design a Christmas card for everyone who entered!  (Marci, I didn't lie to you, I drew a number first and it WAS yours...then I decided to do everyone!)

So I'd like to show you what I've designed this year.

My own family's card

The card I designed for my parents

Our good friends the Johnsons

My beloved Romania girl Michelle

My nice blog follower Rachel

My dear old roommate Stacey

AND...still waiting for pictures from Marci and Mandy!  :)

Burp cloth tutorial and template

These are some easy peasy burp cloths that make great baby gifts.  They go with the reversible bibs I've also posted.

You will need:

Flannel

Thread

Template

First of all, here is the template.  I would trace it onto a folded piece of tissue paper, then unfold it and pin it to two layers of flannel (right sides together), then cut. 

(hard to see, but there is the tissue paper pattern pinned to the flannel)

Simply remove the pattern piece and repin the two pieces of flannel together, and you're good to go.  Cuts a couple steps out that way.

Starting on one of the straight edges and using a 1/2 inch seam allowance, sew all the way around, leaving about 1.5 inches open.  Trim your seams down to about 1/4 inch, EXCEPT at the open seam, Then carefully clip the curves (pies out of outer curves, snip inner curves) as needed:

Then turn the whole thing inside out through the 1.5 inch opening.  Use a pen or a ruler or even your shears (provided they have blunt ends) to help push the curves out.  Then press to help it hold its shape, and pin the open seam closed.

Now, if your sewing machine has any decorative stitching, it's time to shine. I chose a green thread with a curving stitch to match my monkey bibs. Again, using the presser foot as a guide, sew all the way around. Make sure you are sewing close enough to the edge to close up that 1.5 inch open seam.

And you are done!  Here's my burp cloth with its matching bib:

I like to roll them up and tie them with raffia and a note.

Easy peasy cute gift!

Baby Girl's Sweater Dress, Shoes and Headband

I had an old sweater I hated.  And I've seen lots of people turn old sweaters into cute sweater dresses for their girls.  So I decided to try my hand at it.

Before

After



Because every little girl needs a matching headband

And shoes...

(I do not recommend making shoes out of stretchy squishy old sweaters unless you are not a perfectionist!  Pattern for shoes here.)

Turkey shirts

My kid-lins in their turkey shirts

I have found dozens of adorable ideas for Thanksgiving shirts for girlies, but not many I really want my son to wear.  Until this.  I just finished my own version of Positively Splendid's Butterball Tee.  She has instructions on her blog, but it's one of those things you can kinda look at and just do.  I used four colors of felt, a rectangle (5 inches by 7 inches) of denim, Heat n' Bond iron on adhesvie and white thread.  You can find a template for my shapes here.  (Those are the shapes for the TOP layer...cut about 1/4" around them for the bottom layers.)  I totally love it!!!

Now onto my daughter's turkey shirt!   Her shirts are loosely based on this shirt at The Cottage Home, and this shirt at Embellished Bayou.  I made it specifically to match those plaid pants she's wearing!  Just used felt for the turkey body, and skinny Ofry ribbon for the feathers.

Both my kids LOVED having a special Turkey shirt (even if my daughter just liked pulling on and trying to chew on the ribbons!).

My baby girl's new dress

So, as mentioned in my last post, I whipped up a dress for my daughter to wear for our family pictures.  I LOVE IT.  So pleased with how it turned out!

I used Simplicity pattern 3854.  I made my own bias tape for the little bolero, and I think it really adds something to it.  There is an awesome tutorial here (it's a PDF and won't link directly, so scroll down the page until you see Tutorials on the right sidebar) on how to make bias tape.

Embellished the bolero, shoes and headband with yo-yo's.  Great tutorial here.

As usual, sandwiched the seam of foldover elastic between the decorative part (in this case, the yo-yo's) and a layer of felt and hot glued the thing together.

And the shoes!  Didn't finish them in time for the pictures, but that's okay.  Used a pattern found here.
(This is why I love crafty blogging.  The generous sharing of ideas!!!)

And now my beauty (and her big brother):

 

Looks great, right? :)

Little girls' flower headbands

So I had a shower to attend on Friday.  My husband's cousin Kattie is pregnant with long awaited twin girls.  I'm not into the whole twins matching thing...so I opted for similar-but-different in the hair bows I made (because no little girl can have too many bows).

The first set:

Made of felt and foldover elastic.  I took this tutorial and adapted it.  Mostly made it smaller!  I used 3.5 inch squares instead of 7 inch squares.  I found it was too hard to fold the felt into fourths and cut it...so I just folded it in half and cut it (here's my template, if you want it).  Once each petal piece was sewn, I attached it all together on the headband with hot glue.

Second set:

I based these flowers on a tutorial for making paper flowers.  I used a salad plate to make the circle from which I cut the spiral...but that was a little big...I ended up cutting off quite a bit!  And just glued sparkly silver beads in the center (how I love my hot glue gun).

Third set:

I just kinda twisted and folded in my own way, but here is a good rolled rose tutorial (the actual tutorial is a PDF and I can't get the link to work...so just scroll down the page until you come across Free Projects on the right side bar).  Oh, and I was extra zealous on the felt backing for the burlap rose to make sure none of that itchy (but totally cool looking) burlap would touch the baby's head. Trimmed out a little bit of the center of each rose so I could sink the 8 mm brown pearl into it.  More hot glue.

Fourth set:

My favorite!  Braided roses made with two patterned calicos and one solid broadcloth each.  Cut (or tear) three strips of fabric (mine were 12 inches long and half an inch wide, which made about a rose about an inch and a quarter in diameter).  Either hot glue or sew together at one end.  Braid (how tightly you braid changes the look of the rose).  Sew or hot glue the ends together to hold braid.  Roll up, gluing as you go.  Finish by tucking the end of the braid on the bottom of the rose and gluing into place.  The end!

The leaves are also pretty easy.  Cut a 3 inch square of fabric.  Fold in half to make a rectangle, then take the top two corners of the rectangle and fold down into the center, forming a triangle (this puts all the unfinished edges together along the bottom).  Baste along the long bottom (unfinished) edge of the triangle.  Gather.  And there you go.

And now, back to sewing my daughter's new dress...we're getting our family pictures taken tomorrow, and I figured out what I wanted my son and husband to wear, but my little girl just didn't have anything that would suit me!  So I headed off to the fabric store...I'm almost done with the dress, then I'll just have to make the little bolero jacket (but I'm also going to attempt making my own bias tape...wish me luck!)

Baby shower invites

So I'm getting together some invitations for a baby shower some friends and I are throwing.  I think they are super-de-duper cute invitations.  I used to sell them in my Etsy shop, in fact.  So I thought I'd share them with you here.

Here is the template for the diaper portion.  I designed it to take an entire sheet of 8.5X11 cardstock rather than 12X12 since that is more expensive.  Fold along the lines and stamp the lower layer as desired.  (I used a jumbo wheel stamp from Stampin' Up that I believe is retired now)  Apply adhesive (I like Tombow mono adhesive, you can find it at almost any craft store) where the pieces overlap.  Punch holes about 3/8 inch apart for the safety pin to go through.  I used my Cricut machine to cut the tag, and stamped it with another Stampin' Up set. 

Then make the insert card.  The bottom layer of the insert card is 4 3/16 inches wide by 3 11/16 inches tall, and the top layer is 4 inches wide by 3 inches tall. Add the info as you would like it.

The completed card should fit in a A-2 size envelope (I buy mine in bulk from the envelope superstore for all my card making needs).

Cute, right? :)